TROLLS AND OLOG-HAI
Tolkien’s portrayal of Trolls in The Hobbit owes a great deal to the Brothers Grimm and Icelandic trickster tales. Unlike the Trolls of Morgoth in the First Age, who were largely inspired by the fearful Norse legends of the giants of Jotunheim, the three Trolls encountered by Bilbo Baggins and Thorin and Company in The Hobbit are very much of the comic fairy-tale variety and are thus easily tricked by the clever fairy-tale hero.
Although immensely stupid by human and Hobbit standards, these Trolls – Bert, Tom and William Huggins – are capable of (grammatically poor) speech. This made them geniuses among Trolls and almost smart enough to put an end to the Hobbit’s adventure. This episode was clearly based on the Brothers Grimm’s tale of “The Brave Little Tailor”, although it is the Wizard Gandalf who, taking on the role of the clever tailor, outwits the Trolls by keeping them arguing until the sun rises and turns these creatures to stone.
The Hobbit’s discovery of the Trolls’ hoard of treasure and charmed weapons is very much in the tradition of German and Scandinavian legends and fairy tales. It has long been a common plot device of the storyteller and has become so in contemporary gaming. In The Hobbit, it proves to be a means of arming Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Wizard and Thorin Oakenshield with the charmed Elven blades Sting, Glamdring and Orcrist that will prove critical in their overcoming of future obstacles and challenges. As Tolkien’s tale shows, the Trolls’ evildoing is somewhat limited by their fatal aversion to sunlight. This is another of the folklore traditions Tolkien borrowed from Scandinavia, where many communities boast of large local standing stones that are reputed to be transformed and petrified trolls. In the Third Age, however, Sauron uses his dark powers to overcome this biological limitation of these monsters. In Mordor, he breeds a new race of super-Trolls who can endure the light of the sun. These hulking creatures the Dark Lord calls the Olog-hai, meaning “Troll-folk” in the Black Speech of the Orcs. In the creation of the Olog-hai, Tolkien broke with the folklore tradition not only by excepting them from the fatal power of sunlight over trolls, but arming them like soldiers with black shields, round and huge, and mighty war hammers that crushed the helms of foes.
Olog-hai Troll of Mordor
In this way, in the mountains of Mordor and the forests about Dol Guldur in Mirkwood where the Olog-hai are sent by Sauron, a great evil is loosed upon the Elves, Dwarves and Men of Middle-earth in the Third Age.
